


Please Help Me

by coffeeandfeathers



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Animal Abuse, Beating, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Death, Emotional Abuse, Gen, Humilation, Overdose, Physical Abuse, Starvation, Torture, attempted suicide, but like this is why blaine is what he is, dude I'm sorry, every single child abuse trigger warning possible, i'm warning you now, more tags as story progresses, this is extremely rough
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-15
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-06-02 08:39:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6559648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandfeathers/pseuds/coffeeandfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Massive TW for child abuse. </p><p>So in "The Whopper," we meet Blaine's sadistic nanny Frau Bader and find out that not only was he neglected as a kid, but basically tortured as well. And because I'm a terrible person, I wanted to explore that abuse and how it made Blaine into the cold-blooded killer we see in the show. Obviously don't read if any of this would be triggering for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Age 3

The first time Blaine remembers being hit, he didn’t see it coming until he was already on the floor. He landed heavily on the kitchen linoleum with his face stinging, Frau Bader standing over him like Goliath. He couldn’t even remember what he’d done, but her face was so red that it must have been bad. It must have been really bad. Blaine scooted away from her, his eyes already filling with tears, but she hauled him up by the front of his shirt and grabbed his shoulders.

“You make a mess one more time and I’ll give you something to cry about. Understood?”

Blaine nodded, which earned him another slap.

“You say ‘Yes, Frau Bader.’”

“Yes, Frau Bader.” His cheek hurt. She was gripping him so tightly that he couldn’t wiggle free.

“Now get out of my sight. And stop crying.” She shoved him away from her and he hit the floor again, unable to keep his balance. He was shaking, trying to keep the tears in, as he crawled past the refrigerator to safety.

 

Age 5

Blaine doesn’t understand why his tummy hurts all the time. He doesn’t understand why it rumbles so much before lunch at school, and why it doesn’t stop hurting after he eats. He doesn’t understand why he’s so desperate for snack time, why he crams down everything he’s given so fast because who knows what it’ll be like at home? Sometimes Frau Bader sits him down at the kitchen table and pours him a bowl of cereal or, if she’s in a good mood, pushes a mound of scrambled eggs onto his plate. Most of the time, she pours him a glass of milk and tells him to be grateful. It’s hard to be grateful when your father is eating breakfast across the table from you.

“He’s getting fat,” Blaine heard his dad say one morning, as if he wasn’t sitting right in front of him. “What have you been feeding him?”

“Not too much. He eats like a pig,” Frau Bader said, glancing at Blaine. He’d been sent to bed without dinner the night before for leaving his shoes in the living room and was now trying desperately to eat his cereal without making too much noise in case someone decided to take it away.

“I’m still hungry,” Blaine said into his bowl, and his father laughed.

“Of course you are. Keep that up and you’ll be as fat as your cow of a mother.”

Blaine looked up at Frau Bader, steeling himself. “Can I have some more?”

“You’ll eat what you have and you’ll like it. Now be quiet.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Blaine drained the bowl. Only three more hours til snacktime.


	2. Chapter 2

Age 8

They’d started punishing him with ipecac. If he was too loud or got in trouble at school, Frau Bader would cook something he liked, like spaghetti and meatballs or mac and cheese, and then force feed him a spoonful of syrup that sent him rushing for the bathroom. He would heave for an hour even after all of the food was gone, tears streaming down his face, and eventually even the smell of his favorite foods would make him start to gag. He begged Frau Bader not to give him the medicine, that I’ll be good please please don’t make me eat it, please. Frau Bader thought this was terribly funny and started dispersing the ipecac, sometimes cooking and then not making him throw up so he wouldn’t know when it was coming. Blaine couldn’t trust her.

“Daddy?” He hovered in the doorway to his father’s study after one such instance, his own stomach rebelling out of fear and anxiety instead of in reaction to a punishment.

“What.” His father didn’t even look up from his desk.

“I got sick.”

“You’re always sick.”

“Frau Bader scared me.”

Angus looked up. “Good.”

“She hit me with her belt.”

“Good.” He returned to his paperwork. “Now get out.”

Blaine got out. He curled up under his bed and covered his mouth so no one would hear him crying.

“Hey! There’s my favorite grandson!” These days, it seemed like his grandpa was the only grownup who was happy to see him. Blaine’s father had taken him on a few errands and one of them involved stopping at the firm Grandpa owned. Blaine could barely keep down his excitement.

“I’m your only grandson, Grandpa.”

His grandfather stood up and came around to the front of his desk. “I know, I know. C’mere, give Grandpa a hug.”

It felt so good to be touched, to be held like something more than a piece of furniture. Blaine couldn’t get into his grandpa’s arms fast enough, and didn’t let go for a long time. Grandpa always let him let go first, like he knew how much Blaine needed that hug.

“That’s enough,” Blaine’s father said, and Blaine drew away instinctively.

“You’re getting so big! Let me look at you.” Grandpa kissed the top of Blaine’s head and looked him over, his big hands gentle on Blaine’s shoulders. “You need to bring him around more, Angus. The boy’s growing like a weed!” This was directed at Blaine’s father, who scoffed.

“He has a nanny for that.”

“Then tell her to bring him. I never see him anymore. You’re growing into such a handsome young man,” Grandpa said, and Blaine beamed and straightened his back.

“Thank you.”

“Good manners, too.”

“I didn’t come here for you to baby my son. We have business to discuss. Blaine, go wait in the lobby.”

“He can stay here. What, are you afraid to talk business with my heir?”

“Blaine. Go. Wait. In. The lobby.” This Angus said through gritted teeth and Blaine scrambled back from his grandfather and made for the door, already anticipating the beating he would get if he disobeyed.

“I’ll see you soon, buddy. I love you,” Grandpa called as Angus pulled the door closed, and Blaine couldn’t hide his smile. His father was always furious after these meetings, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in days, Blaine felt full.

  
  


Age 10

His father bought a dog, a beautiful year old Golden Retriever, and Frau Bader was already thinking up new punishments involving the crate. It was tight and cramped, plenty of room for a dog but not for a ten year old boy. Some nights, if she was angry, Frau Bader shut him in the crate and left him there overnight. She said it kept him out of the way, but Blaine was more than capable of staying out of the way on his own. He practically blended in with the furniture, holed up in his room with CDs he’d borrowed from the library. He’d learned to stop expecting attention, or at least positive attention. Until his father got Buddy.

Blaine wasn’t entirely sure why his father suddenly decided to get a dog, but he’d never had such a close companion in his life. On the nights that Blaine spent in the crate, Buddy slept next to him, sticking his nose through the bars and licking Blaine’s hand as if to comfort him. When he was allowed to sleep in his bed, Buddy slept there too. He was already trained and would lick Blaine awake on school mornings, nosing at him until he laughed. Blaine worried about what happened Buddy when he was at school, but as soon as he got home, he’d clip on Buddy’s leash and take him to the park in their gated community to check him for bruises. As far as he could tell, his father wasn’t hurting Buddy at all.

Once, in the middle of a screaming fit, Blaine’s father kicked Buddy to get him out of the way, and Blaine had never felt so angry in his life.

“Hit me!” He yelled, putting himself in the line of fire. “Hit me instead. Don’t hit Buddy. He’s just a dog. He doesn’t know.”

Angus left a bruise the size of his fist on Blaine’s shoulder, but it was worth it to protect the dog, who curled up in bed with Blaine that night and licked at his wet face until he fell asleep.

“I love you,” Blaine said, pulling the dog close. “I won’t let them hurt you. I love you, okay?” And even though he couldn’t say it, Buddy seemed to understand.

“Blaine, is everything all right at home?”

Blaine shifted uncomfortably in his desk. His fourth grade teacher had asked to see him during recess, which he didn’t mind since he didn’t have the energy to run around anyway, but the concern on her face made him uncomfortable.

“Mhm.” He said. His father had made it very clear what would happen to him if he told anyone what Frau Bader was doing. It was his fault, anyway. If he just behaved, things would be okay. It wasn’t like his father and Frau Bader actually enjoyed punishing him. Was it?

Ms. Barnes looked down at him. “Are you sure?”

“Mhm.” He tried to look her in the eye.

“How did you get this bruise around your throat?”

Blaine shrugged. “Fell down.” He tugged his collar over his neck to hide it and swallowed hard. He’d tracked mud into the house after a walk with Buddy and Frau Bader had wrapped her big hands around his throat until he couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, but no one had ever noticed the bruises before.

“Do you need to go to the nurse?”

Blaine shook his head. His father would find out that someone had seen him. He was only allowed to go to the doctor or dentist when he didn’t have anything visible.

“Blaine.” His teacher bent down a little so she was at eye level with him. “Is someone hurting you?”

A lump rose in his throat, and it took everything he had to shake his head.

“I can help you. I can get you to a safe place.”

“I’m okay, Ms. Barnes. Can I please go outside now?”

Two weeks later, Ms. Barnes was replaced with a long term substitute and Blaine was made to stand against the wall while Frau Bader hit the backs of his legs with her belt buckle. He limped for the next week and no one said anything.


	3. Chapter 3

Age 13

Blaine still wasn’t eating enough. He sprouted up three inches and he could count his ribs and God, he was  _ so  _ hungry. His father withheld lunch money when he talked back and so Blaine started to steal. He was a little taller than the other boys and he could take a hit and eventually the other kids just handed over their lunches without even being asked. Arms full, he curled up in a stall in the boys bathroom and stuffed down as much as he could hold. It felt good to eat as much as he wanted. He started hoarding snacks under his bed, tearing into them when Frau Bader sent him to his room. His neglected body, so used to purging everything out of his stomach as soon as it settled, rebelled a little at all the junk, but he’d gotten good at keeping everything down. It was better than nothing. He was staying alive on Ho-Hos and Cheetos and ham sandwiches. This one kid’s mother wrote him notes. Blaine kept all of them under his loose floorboard and sometimes read them out loud to Buddy, who seemed fond of being talked to.

His lunch racketeering lasted for almost eight months before anyone caught on, and that was only after some other battered punk tried to horn in on Blaine’s territory. Blaine split three knuckles open on the kid’s front teeth and spent the next two hours sitting outside the principal’s office, bleeding all over his uniform pants. No one cares about your bruises when you’re busy making them on someone else. And then it was back to starvation and making sure Buddy got enough and persistent shooting pains through his abdomen all night. Frau Bader started locking him out on the porch at night, leaving him to shiver himself into a half sleep before it was time to get up for school. Even the dog crate was better than this.

Blaine got desperate. He lurked around corner stores and groceries and slipped candy bars up his sleeve, his head spinning with hunger. Buddy curled up next to him in bed when he was allowed in and tried to warm him up, but Blaine was so thin that even Buddy’s body next to him wasn’t enough. He started picking through the trash after school, started stealing anything he could to keep himself conscious. This lasted for only a month before he got caught with a pack of gum shoved into his back pocket.

“You can’t take him.” Blaine put himself between Buddy and Frau Bader, his shaking hands balled into fists. “Do whatever you want to me. Just don’t take him.”

“Get out of the way.”

“No.”

Frau Bader took Blaine by his hair and flung him to the floor, cracking his skull on the tile. When he woke up, Buddy was gone. He spent the next two weeks unable to breathe, like someone had choked every bit of hope from his body. He crawled into the dog crate voluntarily, like it could somehow bring his dog back, like if he paid his dues he’d wake up and Buddy would be sitting outside the crate as always. His bed felt too big. Frau Bader found him on the porch one morning half frozen to death, and shut him in his room with a hot water bottle and a bowl of soup. Blaine couldn’t bring himself to eat it, barely even had the energy to open his eyes. He vaguely remembered Frau Bader spooning hot liquid down his throat and then piling blankets on top of him before shutting the door.

“You don’t get to decide when you’re punished,” she said. “I decide that.”

“Why?” Blaine croaked. “Just kill me. Just get it over with.”

“Go to sleep. You’re not dying anytime soon.”

Blaine wanted desperately to prove her wrong.

 

Age 16

Blaine doesn’t remember a lot of this year. His friends at school started drinking, sneaking water bottles full of vodka into class, and Blaine found himself curled up on his bedroom floor hugging an empty bottle of wine to his stomach at least twice a week. It was better than having nothing in him at all, and at least if he had to sleep on the porch, he’d be warm. On weekends, he sometimes visited his grandfather at the firm, feigning interest in the family business just to get out of the house. Sometimes his grandfather would pour him a glass of whiskey too, which was an added bonus.

Blaine’s father hated all of this, and insisted on accompanying his son on his visits, which left Blaine sullen and unresponsive. His grandfather noticed.

“You seem much happier when your dad isn’t here,” he said one evening. Blaine glanced into his glass, wishing he’d thought to eat something beforehand. His head was feeling a little fuzzy.

“I am.”

“Why?”

Blaine just shrugged and took a sip of whiskey. It burned going down.

“I guess all teenagers feel that way about their parents though, huh?”

“I guess.” Blaine didn’t feel much like talking. Frau Bader had found him asleep on the floor that morning and woke him up with a kick to the ribs, and now every breath felt sore.

“Is everything okay?” His grandfather asked this sometimes and Blaine never knew how to respond. “No,” he wanted to say. “Dad hits me. Everyone hits me. I’m hungry. I’m tired of sleeping on the porch. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he said instead.

“School’s good?”

“Yeah.” Blaine coated the inside of his empty stomach with whiskey and wished it was real fire.

“Blaine? Is that you?” His grandfather asked when Blaine came to visit two weeks before his seventy-first birthday, and the lack of recognition in his eyes was terrifying.

“It’s me. Is everything okay?” His grandfather looked paler, exhausted.

“Oh, yes. Just tired. Come sit down and have a drink with me.”

Blaine curled up in the chair across the desk and took the glass when it was given.

“What happened to your eye?” His grandfather gestured with his glass and Blaine instinctively reached up to touch his swollen face.

“Got into a fight at school.” This was true at least. He’d been volatile and a little drunk. The other kid got pounded into the pavement.

“And this?” His grandfather stood up and reached across the desk to pull back Blaine’s collar. There was a purple and green ring around his neck where someone had tried to choke him, and it would have been so easy to lie and say that happened at school too.

“Dad,” Blaine said instead, and his grandfather pulled back as if he’d be burned.

“What?”

Blaine swallowed hard, feeling his bruised throat complain. “Dad did it.” Why was he saying this? There was nothing his grandfather could do, and he’d just open himself up for even more punishment if his father found out. But the words were already hanging in the air and Blaine’s chest was so heavy and his tongue just kept going.

“He does lots of things. Frau Bader too. They hit me. Sometimes they don’t let me eat. They make me sleep in a dog crate. They gave away my dog. I…” His throat was starting to get tight and to his horror, tears started to well up in his eyes. “Shit, shit.” He pawed at his face, trying desperately to hide behind his hands. “I shouldn’t have… they wouldn’t do it if I was good. It’s my fault. If I just…”

His grandfather was around the desk in a flash, pulling Blaine into his arms before he could finish, and Blaine couldn’t hold back the tidal wave of misery that had been threatening to pour out since before he could remember.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry please don’t tell Dad he’ll…”

“Shh.” His grandfather held him, fingers buried in his hair and running down his back. “I didn’t know. I would never have let you stay with him had I known. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“He was gonna hurt me. No one would believe me.” Blaine’s words were coming up in hiccupy sobs now and a small, terrified part of him wondered if his grandfather would strike out as soon as he realized Blaine had been crying all over his suit.

“Blaine. Oh, buddy. I’m so sorry. I should have realized.” His grandfather sounded like he was having trouble breathing, and Blaine looked up to see that he was crying too. His grandfather smoothed his hands over Blaine’s face, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“I will never let him touch you again, all right? I’ll get you out of there and you’ll never have to see him again. I promise.”

The next time Blaine saw his grandfather, the older man was a vegetable. He still wasn’t sure if Angus had a hand in his grandfather’s rapid decline, but as he watched his father pack away his grandfather’s books and replace the old mahogany desk with a new one, Blaine felt like a scared little boy again.

“It’s for the best,” his father said when Blaine confronted him, asking why they were shutting Grandpa away in a home instead of bringing him to live with them. “I don’t have time to take care of him.”

“I will,” Blaine said, and Angus just laughed.

“You can barely take care of yourself.”

“He was fine last week. I just saw him.”

“These things happen quickly” was all Angus offered, and Blaine ducked out before his father’s good mood could sour. At least it didn’t seem like his grandfather had told Angus about what he knew. But still, even that little taste of what could have been… God, it hurt knowing that he’d almost gotten out. His grandfather would have taken him in and he would have been okay. Now he had to pretend like freedom had never even been an option.

Blaine hadn’t planned to take all those pills, not really. Suicide always felt like what his dad wanted, ever since his mom died, and trying to hurt himself seemed like giving in, like being too weak to take what was dished out. But he hurt. His stomach hurt. His head hurt. His whole body felt like it was on fire and the only option for salvation had evaporated. So Blaine curled up on his bedroom floor and chased a bottle of wine with a fistful of ibuprofen. Maybe this would get his dad’s attention at least.

His stomach rebelled ten minutes later, and the pills came rushing up in a slurry of bitter blackness. The wine burned his nose and throat, and even as his body was desperately trying to save him, Blaine’s vision fuzzed. Maybe he could just go to sleep. That’s what it always looked like in movies. Maybe he could just close his eyes and then maybe it would work.

Frau Bader found him barely conscious, sprawled across the toilet seat, and the next thing Blaine knew, someone was forcing what tasted like thin cement down his throat. He tried to turn his head, his tongue covered in sludge, but someone was holding the back of his neck in place.

“Blaine. I know it tastes awful, but you have to drink it,” an unfamiliar voice said, and Blaine tried to force his eyes open. Someone in scrubs was standing over him, holding a styrofoam cup. Blaine tried to speak, but the inside of his mouth was too sandy. He didn’t know what to say anyway.

“I know. Try to relax, okay?”

Blaine fell back asleep instead, coming to hours later with his left arm full of tubes. His stomach woke up first, churning in agonizing pain under his skin, and Blaine immediately curled in on himself, holding his middle with his free arm.

“You’re awake,” someone said, but Blaine could barely hear them over the rushing blood in his ears.

“Ohhhh…” he managed.

“The nurses said you’d be in pain when you woke up. Probably not enough, but still.” The voice was starting to clarify, coming from the back corner of the room, and Blaine pulled his knees up to his chest in a desperate attempt to push the pain away. He wasn’t wearing his jeans anymore, he noticed dimly. Someone had put him in a hospital gown. Was he in a hospital? Everything was fuzzy around the white hot needles in his stomach.

“Owww.”

“Good. I hope it hurts.”

“D-dad?” 

“Good job.” The voice moved closer, and Blaine managed to look up into his father’s face. A heart monitor beeped behind his head, and Blaine became aware of the multitude of tubes sticking out of his arm.

“Dad. H-help me. P-p-please.”

His father laughed. “Help you? You did this to yourself.”

The evening before was slowly starting to come back. The wine, the handful of pills, passing out in the bathroom. Blaine closed his eyes.

“You… you didn’t l-let me die. W-why didn’t you let me die?”

“Let you die? You didn’t take enough for that. Your mother tried the same shit too a few years ago. At least you were neater. Two thousand dollars to clean those carpets.” His father sighed. “Good riddance.”

Blaine tried to respond, but his stomach lurched and he clapped his free hand over his mouth, trying to force down the acid rising in his throat.

“Trash can’s to your right,” his father said, and Blaine leaned over the edge of the hospital bed and brought up what felt like a liquid brick. He coughed, spitting into the trash can, and his father meandered back over to his side.

“Feel better?”

Blaine shook his head. His diaphragm was sore from vomiting, head spinning, and the needles in his belly were back with a vengeance.

“What the hell were you thinking?” His father’s voice was even, but with a thread of pure rage that Blaine recognized. He shook his head again.

“Oh, of course you weren’t thinking. When have you ever thought before doing something stupid? I’d kill you myself if it weren’t so messy.”

“P-please,” Blaine managed before another brick came up. “Please. It hurts.”

“Astute observation. You are truly a great mind instead of an eternal, colossal fuckup. Are you crying?”

Blaine was trying very hard to  _ stop  _ crying, but he was in so much pain and his stomach kept constricting and the tears kept coming.

“Pathetic. Do you know how much you’re costing me? The price of this room, the activated charcoal you just threw up, all of this,” he gestured to the IV hookup. “Not to mention that $300 bottle of wine you stole from me. Incredible that someone thinks your life is worth that much.”

“Please… please stop.” Blaine pulled his arms around himself, ignoring the tug of the cords. “I can’t… I can’t…”

“Can’t what?” His father sneered.

“I wanted to… to die. I would have been out of the way. I’m s-sorry.”

“You’re  _ sorry _ ? The only thing you should be sorry about is that you didn’t finish the job. You disgust me.”

“I… I know.”

“Good.” His father made for the door, and Blaine tried to lift his head.

“Dad… please don’t go. I don’t want to be alone. Please…” But the door slamming shut behind his father cut him off. Blaine buried his face in his hands.

“I love you, Blaine,” he said into his wrists once he was sure his father was out of earshot. “I was so scared. Please never do that again. I can’t lose you. You’re my son and I love you.” He ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair, holding his stomach with the other. “I’m never going to hurt you again. I’m going to stay with you. I love you.”

_ Stupid.  _ Even barely conscious, pretending that his father would say those things sounded ridiculous. Still, it helped to imagine that the hand in his hair was his dad’s, like the outpourings of love and worry from his own mouth came from his father’s instead. His stomach moaned and Blaine wrapped both arms around his middle, hoping the pressure would help ease the pain a little. He deserved it but God, did it hurt.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty short but I wanted to put something out there.

 

Age 18

Wharton. Blaine still wasn’t sure why his father had pushed so hard for his acceptance, or why he insisted on coming to move-in day, but Blaine was kind of happy he was there. The campus was small and bustling, and Blaine’s father helped him carry his suitcases and boxes up to his dorm.

“Listen.” Angus closed the door and  gripped Blaine’s shoulders in the empty room. “I pulled a lot of strings to get you here. Your grades are abysmal and let’s not even mention your rampant delinquency. But they’re willing to give you a second chance. Do not fuck up here.”

Blaine wanted to respond sarcastically, but his father’s eyes were drilling a hole in his skull and giving up his chance at freedom for one comment would be stupid. “Yes, sir.”

“You get money for books. That’s it. If I catch even the slightest hint that you’re fucking around, I will make you wish you were never born. Understood?”

_ I already wish I was never born.  _ “Yes, sir.”

 

It took six hours after his father left for Blaine to find his first party, and twelve hours to blow the book money on Adderall and two grams of coke. He awoke the next morning painfully hungover on a stranger’s couch, a girl lying in a pool of vomit on the floor next to him, and everything went downhill from there.

After so many years of not having enough to eat, of fishing through garbage cans and counting his ribs and drinking to fill his stomach, having a meal plan and unlimited time to spend in the cafeteria was surreal. Blaine swiped in for breakfast and emerged two hours later, belly swollen with as many carbs as he could cram down and then some. He didn’t have to sleep outside either. The dorm beds weren’t great, but they were  _ beds _ . The first week of classes, Blaine slept all day and awoke only to stuff himself full again and try to hit up as many parties as he could.

He gained twenty necessary pounds in the first two months, and then twenty more unnecessary ones in the subsequent two. He tried to convince himself that he was just bloated, that the constant heaviness in his stomach wasn’t indicative of his overindulgence, but when finals rolled around and the only clothes that fit him were the oversized sweats he’d taken to wearing everywhere, he came to the painful realization that maybe his body was finally catching up to him.

The administrative board contacted Blaine’s father around month three to inform him that his son maintained a healthy 0.6 GPA and had been arrested twice, once for distribution of controlled substances and once for breaking another boy’s jaw in a bar fight. They were not willing to offer him a second probationary semester.

 

Blaine called his father, listened to his voicemail, called again the next day.

“Dad,” he said into the receiver, slurring a little from the two shots he’d taken for courage. “Dad, Student Conduct says you aren’t calling them back. My contract is up in December. I don’t know what to do. Please. Please call me back.”

He received a call from Frau Bader two days later, instead. “Your father isn’t interested in speaking to you. You are no longer welcome in his house,” she said curtly, and amid his cold, stomach-dropping terror, Blaine felt a surge of relief settle in the center of his chest. This feeling quickly soured the next day, when Frau Bader called again to tell him they would be sending a car on his final day to bring him home.

The night before he was due back home, Blaine ordered enough Chinese takeout for three people and washed it down with two six packs and a line. The salt and heavy beer made him feel a little queasy, but a stomachache was better than the creeping dread that had been growing in him since his expulsion.

“S’not like they’re gonna feed me when I get back,” he said aloud to his empty room before draining another beer. “Might kill me instead.” At least if he was going to feel shitty, he was going to do it his way, and besides, at least he’d have something else to focus on.

He awoke the next morning on his dorm room floor, every organ in his body aching, wrapped himself around the metal trashcan next to his bed and tried very hard not to cry while his stomach squeezed out what felt like everything he’d ever eaten in his whole life. The car came at three, and Blaine dragged his suitcases down six flights of stairs and threw them into the trunk before tucking himself into the backseat, wishing he could curl up in his sweats and disappear.

“Christ, look at you,” a familiar voice came from the passenger seat, and Blaine looked up in horror as his father peered at him over the seat. “One semester. You were away from me for one semester and you gained the freshman fifty.”

Blaine didn’t say anything, just brought his knees close to his chest and sucked in his stomach, which twinged at the sudden movement.

“This is why I had Frau Bader keep such a close eye on you. You never could control yourself. You really are your mother’s son.”

“Haven’t killed myself yet,” Blaine said to his knees.

“And what a pity that is,” Angus responded. “Your grandfather would say hello, if he could speak.”

“Fuck you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said FUCK. YOU.”

His father laughed. “Stop here, would you?”

The driver pulled into an empty parking lot, and Angus glanced over his shoulder again. “I’m not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to bring you home. Maybe because you still haven’t learned not to disobey me. Get out.”

Blaine was shaking. “No.”

“GET. OUT.”

Blaine got out.


End file.
